Dedalus Books is a publisher that I would guess not a lot of people have heard of. Based in the UK, they specialise in literary fiction and translated fiction, with a bent towards the fantastic, surreal, decadent, postmodern and strange. Their best-known publication is probably The Arabian Nightmare by Robert Irwin; they also publish postmodernist author Andrew Crumey, contemporary decadents Medlar Lucan and Durian Gray, acclaimed French author Sylvie Germain, classic authors like Octave Mirbeau and Rachilde, and an impressive list of others, as well as collections of translated short fiction and some non-fiction. Their translations have won various prizes, including The Pen/Book-of-the Month-Club Translation Prize in the USA and The Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prize in the UK.

Unfortunately, producing high quality books isn’t enough to keep them afloat. They used to receive an Arts Council grant, but lost it after a good year. Although they intend to apply again, they’re currently in a somewhat tight situation, explained here. I just thought I’d mention them here, with Christmas coming up and people possibly looking for books to buy. Me, I’m looking at Bruges-la-Mort and Emperors of Dreams: Drugs in the Nineteenth Century (who knew that Queen Victoria took cannabis for period pain?)